Israel Emiot (1909 – March 7, 1978) was the pen name of Israel Goldwasser or Israel Yanofsky, a

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

poet and writer who was born in what is now Poland, later lived in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, and spent his last two decades in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

Life

Emiot was born in 1909 in

Ostrów Mazowiecka Ostrów Mazowiecka is a town in eastern Poland with 23,486 inhabitants (2004). Situated in the Masovian Voivodeship (since 1999), previously in Ostrołęka Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is the capital of Ostrów Mazowiecka County. History Ostr ...

, then part of

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...

within the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

. The town became part of independent Poland after World War I. His father emigrated to the United States in 1919, but his mother stayed behind. Emiot published his first writing in 1926, and brought out four books of poetry during the 1930s. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Emiot and his wife and children fled east to the Soviet Union; his mother remained and was killed during the war. In 1944, he was sent to work as a journalist in

Birobidzhan Birobidzhan ( rus, Биробиджа́н, p=bʲɪrəbʲɪˈdʐan; yi, ביראָבידזשאַן, ''Birobidzhan'') is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia, located on the Trans-Siberian Railway, near th ...

, the autonomous region set up for Jews in

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

. Within a few years, as the climate for Jewish writers in the Soviet Union worsened, he was convicted of trumped-up crimes and sentenced to ten years of hard labor, which he served at a camp near

Taishet Tayshet ( rus, Тайшет, p=tɐjˈʂɛt, lit. ''cold river'' in the Kott language) is a town and the administrative center of Tayshetsky District in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, located northwest of Irkutsk, the administrative center of the oblas ...

. After his release, he returned to Poland, and soon after emigrated to the United States, where his wife and children were living in Rochester. He spent his last decade and a half as writer-in-residence at Rochester's

Jewish Community Center A Jewish Community Center or a Jewish Community Centre (JCC) is a general recreational, social clubs, social, and Fraternal and service organizations, fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities. JCCs promote Jewish ...

Writings

Emiot published twelve volumes of poetry in Yiddish from 1932 to 1969, and collaborated on translations of some of his poems in the early 1970s. A prose memoir of his time in Birobidzhan was translated into English by Max Rosenfeld and published in 1981. In 1991, poet Leah Zazulyer brought out a translation of Emiot's poems about his time in Siberia including a biographical introduction, and in 2015 she published translations of selected poetry from various times in Emiot's life.

Works

*Israel Emiot, ''The Birobidzhan Affair: A Yiddish Writer in Siberia,'' translated by Max Rosenfeld (Philadelphia, 1981). *Israel Emiot, ''As Long As We Are Not Alone: Selected Poems,'' translated and introduced by Leah Zazulyer (Rochester, N.Y.: Tiger Bark Press, 2015).

References

*Leah Zazuyer, "Introduction," in ''Siberia: Poems by Israel Emiot'' (Brockport, N.Y.: State Street Press, 1991), pp. 5–15.
"Israel Emiot Dead at 69," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 8 March 1978
{{DEFAULTSORT:Emiot, Israel 1909 births 1978 deaths American poets in Yiddish Yiddish-language poets 20th-century American poets Jewish American poets Poets from New York (state) Polish Jews Polish emigrants to the United States